Accelerate projects, share content and work on the go

Globalisation means that today’s business is conducted anywhere at any time. Subsequently, people need reliable tools to quickly and easily access their work files. Furthermore, business workers expect to be able to work on any type of device including mobiles and want to have access to their data on those devices. However, knowing what is required and finding a tool to achieve those objectives may be challenging, especially due to the rapidly increasing level of data that must be accessed by users. Every year companies create more data than the last, adding megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes. Additionally, data sits in many places; on file servers, in Sharepoint, in email attachments and sometimes even on thumb drives; this makes it hard to access, particularly remotely or from a mobile device.

In answer to the specific concerns of business owners, Google has introduced, Google Drive for Work, giving you more control, security and visibility into how files are shared.

This challenge is further magnified as business users struggle to find pertinent information and share it with their teams; while at the same time, IT is trying to manage and secure all this corporate data and send it wherever it is required. Conversely, when employees cannot work the way they want, they take matters into their own hands, use unsanctioned services or devices and complicate their IT infrastructure.To say that modern companies are “mobile-first” focused, would be the understatement of this era, as enterprises expect to access, edit and share data with ease while on-the-go. Now, Google Drive is already allowing individuals to keep all their work safe while making it available everywhere and shareable.

Collaborating with Google Drive

To further highlight this situation, we will examine the case of a typical enterprise and their struggle to effectively collaborate. Case in point, the marketing team of a company had trouble locating the latest versions of their documents, had no central place to store information and information was scattered on people’s computers; making important marketing briefs and campaigns very hard to find on tight deadlines. Moreover, sales agents and other employees were turning to external tools to get mobile access, by forwarding their work email to personal Gmail accounts and using external online storage services due to limitations with in-house systems.

Before using Google Drive for Work, company employees used their own files and saved them on their system, which made the retrieval process time consuming, especially when the file need to be submitted at a particular time. Moreover, the majority of the company’s customers are from various countries around the world, so employees have to handle enquiries at anytime. Employees also require the movement of various documents for client verification which have to be sent in direct post or email attachments.Finally, the company also faced problems with multiple versions of documents resulting in no clarity of updated information. Consequently, the company decided to begin looking for the means to build an intranet that needed to act as a true internal portal with a single login, where all departments could communicate and host everything that was piling up in emails.

Google Drive for Work provided a central location where all their work is safe, available everywhere, easily shared, with unlimited capacity and performance.

The features of Google Drive for Work allows for a mobile experience that lets you have mobile activity feed, mobile office editing and mobile file organization. It also has built in Microsoft Office®, so that you can open and edit most common file types, namely Microsoft Word®, Excel® and PowerPoint® files by using the new Office Compatibility Mode with no need to invest in additional software.

Unlimited storage and state of the art security

Perhaps the most attractive feature of Google Drive for Work is the unlimited storage plus the ability to store and share files up to 5TB in size. No more resource calculations, out of space warnings, or scrambling to add and manage additional servers; you can store as much data as you need with unlimited storage and Drive is built on Google’s globally optimised datacenter network, so performance and availability are world class, while also being green.The security of customer information is also another critical feature that Google has covered. Understandably, moving to the cloud means big questions about confidentiality and privacy. As a part of Google Apps for Business, Google Drive has built in audit reports and API, with alerts to warn of suspicious login detection. Rest assured, Google Drive is a safe and secure (SSL) cloud platform with enterprise-grade security and compliance, including a SSAE 16 / ISAE 3402 Type II, SOC 2-audit, ISO 27001 certification, adherence to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, and can support industry-specific requirements like HIPAA. Additional security features include; Google Apps Vault, OU controls, sync & offline, OU control sharing, domain whitelisting, e-discovery and retention & archiving.

Cross device compatibility

Other specific features comprise of, native apps for Android and iOS as well as Google Search and OCR that allows you to find everything instantly, even in your hand-written notes. Google Drive’s mobile activity feed shows you everything that’s happening with files or folders, thereby letting Drive become the inbox for your content, not just an access point. Happily, Google Drive for Work comes with standardised mobile device management so IT managers can feel comfortable no matter what device a user chooses and new fine-grained controls let administrators customise the Drive experience. Summarily, Drive is well designed for both end-users and IT and being on Google’s global datacenter network means no more infrastructure constraints. With unlimited storage, access points everywhere and 99.99% reliability, IT teams can stop worrying about managing quotas and focus on business-critical projects.

With 100+ pre-built extensions, like screen-sharing and video chat, teams can work together in ways they never imagined no matter where team members are located. A powerful SDK and APIs that are integrated with Android means that Drive is extensible enough to meet the needs of your business, today and tomorrow.

Google Drive for Work, a new premium offering for businesses that includes unlimited storage, advanced audit reporting and new security controls for £5.60/user/month.

To point out Google Drive for Work’s success is to relate how some companies use Drive today, using sync to help global teams work together seamlessly across time zones; while other companies use shared Drive folders as a central place to store files, share marketing videos, training resources and drawings. The uses for Google Drive are extensive and with the added capabilities around API’s the options are now only limited by your imagination.A lot of companies today talk about being “mobile-first” At Google, their goal is to make the mobile experience as great, or even better than the desktop. And with over a Billion users on Android they have extensive experience in this field. Notwithstanding, mobility is a key part of Google’s DNA and every Google employee goes through a mobile bootcamp. For Drive, Mobile-first means not only having native apps for Android and iOS, but providing an experience users expect from Google-Fast and fluid, with the ability to not just view files but actually edit them.

With Google search and OCR, you can find everything instantly, even hand-written notes. Drive’s mobile activity feed shows everything thats happening with files or folders, letting Drive become the inbox for your content, not just an access point and Drive comes with mobile device management built in, so IT can feel comfortable no matter what device a user chooses.Certainly, Google Drive gives you the foundation for a new way to work, one that fits better with an always-on, global workforce; where you’ll be able to collaborate on documents, publish content to websites and internal networks, and connect with remote teams.

Google Drive for Work helps people work at ease as employees can become more efficient, productive and happy, while working from their favourite coffee shop.

About the Author﻿Dwayne Campbell﻿is the Managing Director of Work Cloud Solutions, an Authorised Reseller of Google Apps that specialises in helping professional firms work more effectively with mobile and remote teams.

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